Jeffrey L. Frischkorn takes you with him as he chronicles his outdoors adventures around Northeast Ohio and beyond.

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Angler-shooter buying habits are detailed

If any
surprise exists for the buying habits of American hunters and anglers it is
that there are no surprises.

Or at least
only a few surprises.

The highly
respected and thoroughly performed summaries of buying trends performed by the co-joined
AnglerSurvey.com and ShooterSurvey.com are go-to insights useful for their
respective industries, state fish and game agencies and even sportsmen and
sportswomen.

Pooled
together under the banner Southwick and Associates, the latest compilations
illustrate just how traditional-bound are the nation’s anglers, hunters, and
shooters.

Among the most
recent AnglerSurvey.com’s findings were that the vast majority of fishing rod
and reel combinations were – on average – one-half the cost of purchasing rods
and reels separately in order to make an assembly.

This trend
is easily noticeable in any good fishing tackle or general purpose outdoors
store where such “combos” are often more numerous than the racks of reels and
the counter displays of fishing reels, each of which is looking for a suitable
partner and a good home.

Also,
spinnerbaits are much less popular fishing baits than are hardbaits and jigs.
Meanwhile, more than a little bit are the sales of various terminal tackle
(hooks, bobbers, sinkers) made at local bait and tackle stores.

In both of
these cases every head ought to bow in recognizable understanding.

So too is
what anglers seek with largemouth/spotted bass so far in the popularity lead
(50 percent of fresh-water anglers) that the second place category – panfish –
is way far back; less than 35 percent, in fact.

Sorry, Lake
Erie walleye anglers, nationally AnglerSurvey found that only 14 percent of the
surveyed anglers sought this species. It’s even less for steelhead; try 5.9
percent.

And almost as
many anglers seek carp (2.2 percent) as do those who seek white bass (2.9
percent).

If any
eyebrow-raising was seen in the AnglerSurvey.com findings it is that fly
fishers are far more likely to utilize the Internet than are anglers who
utilize other types of fishing gear.

AnglerSurvey.com
found that while fly fishers made 32 percent of their purchases in specialty
angling stores,\ some 33 percent went on-line an made buys via fly-fishing websites.

Then again –
and certainly predictable – is that flies were the Number One purchase made by
fly fishers, though a “huh?” is credible regarding the AnglerSurvey.com finding
that of the flies purchased more than one-half were nymph patterns, and not dry
flies, streamers, and wet flies.

Too, of the
fishers profiled in the latest survey, 65 percent of the respondents fished in
freshwater only, 20 percent in saltwater only, and 15 percent fished in both
mediums.

(As a personal
aside, during several fishing trips I’ve made to Florida I’ve always been amazed
as to how many saltwater anglers and freshwater anglers fished only their own
respective turf, and even acted astonished when asked whether they’ve ever crossed
over to the other side.)

Anyway, a
couple of other surprising/not-so-surprising numbers is that more freshwater
anglers fished from powerboats (65 percent) than those who fished from shore
(39 percent).

On the
okay-we’ve-got-something-new-to-report-here side, more anglers fished from
kayaks (12) than either from bass boats (7 percent), from canoes (2 percent),
or from float-tubes (also 2 percent.)

That fishing
from kayaks has grown so rapidly is also likely being noted in the growing presence
such vessels are having in larger outdoors retail stores.

Moving on to
hunting, HunterSurvey.com hardly shatters the world with the news that 9mm and
.45 Auto – in that order – remain the most popular handgun cartridges.

Hardly
surprising either is that the vast majority of handguns purchases were for
self-defense (45 percent).

A figure I’m
not sure how to interpret other than to note the continued supply shortage of
.22 long rifle cartridges, is that for every box of rimfire ammunition sold,
shooters bought three boxes of center-fire rifle ammunition.

Not even worth
a wrinkled brow in surprise is that purchases of lead shot shotshells are twice
as popular as those containing non-lead shot.

Oh, and in
spite of inroads made by such firms as Mossberg, Winchester, Weatherby and
Beretta, the making, marketing and selling of affordable shotguns, far and away
Remington remains the Number One preferred.

Something of
a personal eyebrow twitch-raiser was how Pyrodex still holds the top spot in
sales for black-powder substitutes and not Triple Seven or any of the other current
stable of black-powder exchange materials.

In terms of why
people bought hunting/firearm-related products during the survey period for
November-December, for the use in hunting was most at 36.2 percent. Meanwhile, purchases
for general shooting were 31.5 percent, self-defense at 14.9 percent, and gift
at 9.5 percent.

Again when
thinking about no-brainer firearms/hunting-related, ammunition accounted for
63.7 percent of sales while the purchases of firearms ranked fifth at 40.9
percent.

Purchases of
shooting equipment, hunting equipment and even hunting apparel ranked higher
than did the buying of firearms.

Maybe an “oh,
boy” surprise is the statistic whereby more air rifles were bought during the
survey period (4 percent) than were crossbows (3.5 percent.)

Okay, since
this story is also about no surprises here’s one: Of the types of shotguns
purchased during the survey period it wasn’t even close. Pump-action models
accounted for 40.7 percent of such buys. Trailing behind were semi-autos at
30.8 percent.

Hardly a
blip were the sales of over/unders (13.9 percent), side-by-sides (9.9 percent),
and single shot shotguns (2.8 percent).

Anyone
startled by these numbers? Didn’t think so.

In the arena
of archery tackle sales, I was taken aback somewhat by the fact that many more purchasers
said they bought longbows (19.8 percent) than did those people saying they
purchase crossbows (10.1 percent).

So there you
have it. Pump-action shots remain king of the hill as does 9mm ammunition, the
Internet sale of fishing flies, and fishing
for largemouth bass.

On the other
hand, a bit of noteworthiness is how in spite of more states liberalizing the
allowance of crossbows for hunting, longbow sales still rank supreme.

Similarly,
on the trends-to-watch categories is the growth of fishing from kayaks as well
as the one for sales of fishing reel-fishing rod combinations.

Take all of
this to the bank, if you will; and I suspect that is exactly what the
shooting/hunting/fishing industries are doing with such reports as those under the
banner of AnglingSurvey.com and ShooterSurvey.com.

Jeff is the retired News-Herald reporter who covered the earth sciences, the area's three county park systems and the outdoors for the newspaper. During his 30 years with The News-Herald Jeff was the recipient of more than 100 state, regional and national journalism awards. He also is a columnist and features writer for the Ohio Outdoor News, which is published every other week and details the outdoors happenings in the state.